The Sims 4 Q&A With The Developers: September 2026 Update Features

The Sims 4 Quality of Life Update - September 2026 Q&A

Question: Seeing that there will be some great improved autonomy changes, will there be any improvements regarding constant dancing and tv watching autonomy?

SimDevMorgan: We addressed a handful of bugs that were causing ‘Sims Dancing’ to be too frequent:

• We've addressed an issue where stereos could cause Sims to spam dancing interactions in their queue. This is not-retroactive and only fixed in new saves.
• The "Dance Interaction" will no longer be autonomously queued when a Sim is painting.
• Acting on feedback from our Discord Dev Drop Ins, Sims who Dislike Dancing will no longer Autonomously Dance. They will also stop dancing if a song they dislike comes on during their dance.

For TV: Sims with the Mysterious Dynasty Ideal will no longer watch TV over and over again.

Question: Hey guys! With October's update, are there plans to rebalance the calorie / fitness system? As far as I'm aware, at the moment every meal a sim has adds to their calorie count regardless of how hungry they were when eating and the only way to "get rid of calories" per say, is through fitness, which makes it odd when a sim lives on only garden salads but continues to put on weight, if you get me. Just curious if you're looking into anything regarding that system?

SimDevCarlos: For overall calories, there's some work being done around rebalancing, but engineering also worked on a setting so that the weight/muscle changes can be disabled if a player wants for the Oct patch.

Question: Glad to see so many improvements! May I ask (maybe unrelated to both but I’m curious), is there a planned fix in the near future for the Island Living no swim option?

SimDevMorgan: This one is actively being investigated. We have a proposed fix for Oct, but is hasn't been implemented or fixed JUST yet. Fingers crossed.

Question: Will there be any improvement in the future for the frequent console crashes. Between switching to cas, switching lots, build mode. Infinite loading screens or crashes.

SimDevMorgan: We are focusing a lot on crashes for this release and also for Octobers. One of our TOP crashes was due to gamepad directionality for console players and will be fixed in Sept. We're really hopeful this one in particular is going to make a difference. But as always, please keep reporting because we're watching crashes closely.

Question: Hey Sims Team. Will the food dishes get updated and improved in terms of textures with the October update? Are the animations for serving and clearing plates now rendered smoothly, or do the plates still teleport into the Sims' hands?

SimDevMorgan: I wouldn't expect to see art changes with our October release. Most of our updates to Food, Dinging, and Drinks has to do with bug fixing, autonomy improvements, pricing and calorie balancing passes, AND the weight/muscle toggle options.

Question: Also is there a specific reason this is only possible retroactive? (We've addressed an issue where stereos could cause Sims to spam dancing interactions in their queue. This is not-retroactive and only fixed in new saves.)

SimDevCarlos: This is because the object state is messed up on the savefile, if you replace the object in Build Buy, it should be fixed after the patch.

Question: will there be fixes for dine out as well? i'd love to take my family out to dinner again.

SimDevMorgan: OKAY - so... that's a great question. For this update, we wanted to cover fixes across basegame, all packs, and also Dine Out. I think it's important that players aren't expecting a Dine Out refresh or anything drastic like that. However, we do have a lot of Dine Out bug fixes planned and already in the game. We're actually doing a team playthrough tomorrow to see how the experience is feeling with all of the fixes we've put in. So - no promises on drastic changes, we'll be honest closer to the update with how its feeling, its not a major focus, but we are hopeful we can make a difference and improve this gameplay. I'd also like to include a section in the patch notes going over everything that was change and improved in Dine Out when the time comes so they can be viewed holistically.

Question: is there any news on the family dynamic updates? (mentioned in the post, but can yall give a bit of detail?)

SimDevConor: yeah I did a pass to rebalance how/when family dynamics are awarded. Some dynamics were way to frequent, while others were extremely rare. One example is the Jokesters dynamic moment being toned down, and should appear less frequently now.

Question: Will this patch fix this bug?

SimDevCarlos: Yes, and we have some more University fixes being investigated right now.

Question: Will any new dishes be added with the October food update?

SimDevMorgan: Unfortunately no, we aren't adding new content like that. Our new content was focused on the new muscle/weight toggle options for this update.

Question: When is the bug with the infants not falling asleep in cribs going to be fixed?

SimDevMorgan: Yeah! That's on our list for this update. @Carlos-Maxis actually did a lot of work on that.

and there's a couple of other fixes around them, like correctly loading into the parent that was carrying them.

Question: are there plans to fully incorporate the Simple Living Lot challenge into other appliances. Currently Sims are still able to make dishes using the pressure cooker and some other appliances despite having the Simple Living Lot challenge applied. The Popcorn Machine and Ice Cream machine are also missing the cross pack integration.

SimDevMorgan: Not at this time, but please feel free to give feedback on that and if it becomes a big enough community ask, that's the sort of thing our team loves to go after.

Question: When is the update for the free build/buy items coming that was teased awhile back?

SimDevMorgan: Idk what teaser that is, but I will note that Sept's release has some new BB and CAS content coming.

Question: wait food costs money to make in terms of design?! That's crazy. I thought you just made the models and then added them and then ta-da!!!!

SimDevMorgan: Food is so tricky! Writing text for food is wild. There's like a billion text strings when a new recipe is added.

Question: whats the most annoying/challenging thing to to work on this patch coming up?

SimDevCarlos: There was one specific crash in console that we fixed, that was challenging in a weird way. Since we're on PS4 and Xbox One, we have to take some really crazy considerations in performance, but one of those crazy optimizations was causing this crash. So we had to completely rework how the grids let you move around with a controller, because when we made that whole "tree" the UI would run out of memory.

SimDevMorgan: OKAY SO nobody asked, but I'm going to share my favorite thing coming with this update. I've personally always had a vendetta against it, and we slipped it in: Expanded Buff View will no longer automatically close when the game is played at 2x speed or above.

Question: whats everyone else's favourite thing coming in the update?

SimDevCarlos: The pushups!

SimDevConor: Brief context for the push-up fail, our Animation team had actually created this awhile ago but we finally got a chance to hook it up.

Question: Is infants popping out of crib fixed with this update? Not the one bug after loading, just the one that happens randomly with infants with no sit up milestone

SimDevCarlos: So, we have some fixes around this. So the answer is yes, but however, we have a lot of "permutations" so we tested as much as we could around them and their gameplay, but at the end, the infant popping out is the "fallback" so if the infant needs to do something and they can't be on the crib the engine tells them to pop out of the crib, so we have fixes around this that look to be really solid, but it is a complicated system, so we're keeping our eyes out if there's other times in which it can happen.

Question: I don't know if this was asked, but can you tell us what the food, dining and drink update will entail?

SimDevMorgan: Fixes around "food, dining, drinks' as a theme. So there will be a calorie/pricing tuning pass done on all food items across all packs. Plus lots of bug fixes in these areas. Plus the new toggle options for muscles/weight.

Question: A feature that not a lot of players know about is the “Set Table” feature from the Parenthood Game Pack. Many players often get frustrated with not being able to have their Sim Families stay sat at the dining table while having family meals. Is this something that has been investigated and has the team considered bringing the “Set Table” feature to base game for all players as I find using that gameplay feature makes my dining experience a bit more relaxed.

SimDevMorgan: This was something we considered and looked into and just weren't able to make work for this update unfortunately, but I remember getting this feedback and it's a cool idea.

Question: eee i love the new animation, will we be seeing new animations added more often?

SimDevMorgan: This was sort of a special case where the animation already existed and it was easy for us to hook it up and in. I wouldn't expect to see a bunch of new animations in QoL updates.

SimDevMorgan: Here is another cool version of this one!

Question: Will thirst ever make a comeback? I always enjoyed the system, I think it was only confusing to some players as it wasn't explained that they have a thirst need so they considered their sims getting a drink "random" even though mechanics wise their sim had reasons to go grab a drink

SimDevMorgan: At the moment, we don't have that planned. If enough players were interested in it, maybe that's something we could do down the road. For now, it isn't planned though.

Question: Not related to this update but just curious if you are aware about touching interactions like kissing in hot tubs are not working?

SimDevConor: Yes I saw this bug come up! I believe its currently being worked on by smart people

Question: Actually that reminds me: Can something be done about the tendency to put plates in ridiculous places? I keep having to search for nasty plates and glasses on all my shelves and half-walls.

SimDevMorgan: This is being actively investigated at the moment for Oct's release. Fingers crossed.

Question: his isn’t quite to do with the food or drink patch. However could the team consider looking into reducing or removing customers pranking the toilets in Sims businesses. I don’t know how many times I’ve got frustrated lately with Sims coming in and breaking the toilets with a prank

SimDevConor: Yeah I just had this happen to my Restaurant playthrough myself, I agree I'm kind of sick of it

SimDevMorgan: Will follow up on this. Not currently tracking it, but if its not too hard to fix, could be a good candidate for us to go after.

Question: Since we own the returant it would be cool to actually assign family in the postions to hire. That way it could really be a family run business. The waiters and Host dont have good work ethics. I would love that to be something. That way it could be like a sims/diner dash feel. Would expand the Dine Expansion pack experience.

SimDevMorgan: That's a very cool idea and would be very fun to do. Unfortunately, doing that would be a little bigger than we're going after for Oct's release. It'd take quite a bit of work to make that happen.

Question: Will there/could there be an option to lock fridges? I know this happens to be a highly requested thing from many frustrated simmers. It could work similar to how you’ve implemented the PC Security locking feature. I believe this would eliminate random sims helping themselves to leftovers in your Sims fridges.

SimDevMorgan: I'll follow up and see about locking fridges. We are doing some other things with fridges that are really nice quality of life improvements. Ex: Moving open to the front of the pie menu. Or another one we're investigating is making it so Sims will eat leftovers before new meals. No promises yet though. Oct is still in progress and sometimes thing you think will be easy end up not being easy.

Question: can we get clarity on the new muscle/weight toggle options

SimDevCarlos: You'll be able to (globally) turn on/off the body changes around muscles/weight. And there's also a per sim option, so you can disable/enable it on only specific Sims

Question: Oh yeah I nearly forgot re: the stereo bug. if replacing them fixes it, could that be mentioned in the laundry list/patch update? currently it sounds like all old saves are doomed but if replacing a stereo is what fixes it its not that big of a deal (even if a bit tedious lol)

SimDevMorgan: I can see for Patch Notes... we actually just sent off our patch notes today to be translated, but its a good callout.

SimDevMorgan: We were just going to do the Options Menu globally for the weight/muscle toggles, but it was @Conor 's idea to make sure you can do it individually as well, so applause for Conor!

Question: and hopefully upcoming patch fixes calories?

SimDevMorgan: We did a balancing pass to move the extremes. We didn't want to be too drastic. But it needed touched up.

Question: Will the new base game update come with new kits?

SimDevMorgan: Sept's update doesn't have any kits. We do have some new free BG CAS and Build items though relating to Children. More info in the patch notes.

Question: One of the upcoming fixes ([DU] Rotational gameplay is impossible for University) Could we have some clarification on what is being done in regards to this.

SimDevMorgan: So off the top of our heads (not 100% on this because the person who fixed it isn't in our secret call right now): When you swapped households and Sims graduated, it was only checking current household and not all of them. Now it should be able to check degree for others.

Question: just curious if there was any more thorough playtesting after previous updates.

SimDevMorgan: When we fix a bug, we identify 'risk' associated with that fix. We test all of our bug fixes, but particularly issues that are moderate or higher risk get something called 'charters' where we do A LOT of testing around them. They also get extra eyes on reviews before we check them into the build. We've been really trying to hammer on quality with our fixes.

Sometimes, especially when you're fixing A BUNCH OF FIXES there are some new bugs that are going to slip out, but we do really try to avoid this. Though not all releases are as risky or difficult as others. As an example, Infants are VERY tricky because of pick up and put downs, which is why we saw some residual bugs because of that release. For this release, I don't think it was overall as challenging as something like Infants, but sometimes you don't know what you didn't find.

Short answer: We are doing lots of testing, lots of charters on items that that were a bit riskier than other fixes, and we're focusing extra hard on other engineers reviewing fixes before they go in as well. We'll keep doing our best.

Question: How is the REDACTED for the REDACTED going Cade? Oh and what about REDACTED REDACTED!?

SimDevCade: Redactedly

SimDevMorgan: So I'd just like to say... I said [redacted] in the patch notes to be funny. Legal didn't make me say that. It was the muscle/weight toggle feature. XD

Question: Will the sims team consider doing another QoL feedback session specifically for Cats, Dogs and Horses. I know many players would like to see Cats and Dogs specifically get some much needed attention. I for one would love to see Cats and Dogs be given the same UI Horses have so we can better see their needs.

SimDevMorgan: This isn't currently something we're planning, but if there was enough player request around this we'd consider it for the future.

SimDevMorgan: OH ANOTHER COOL THING WE'RE LOOKING INTO is seeing if we can get more recipes added as Family Recipes. We know players really want to see that. AGAIN, no promises, because still WIP. But its something we're looking into.